Three individuals from the United Kingdom now face an extended period in jail after scamming the Casino de Monte Carlo at the roulette tables. The gamblers were able to take almost €3.7m from the casino with their scam and will now serve prison time for their actions.
Just yesterday, a court in Monaco sentenced two of the gamblers to 30 months while the other earned a smaller, ten month sentence. Sajid Rashid and Qamar Hussain will serve the longer term. Zahidul Haque Khan was able to get by with the shorter sentence.
Prosecutors argued that the three gamblers were running a scam for a year that involved passing tokens from the casino worth €10 as tokens that had a value of €1k during roulette game play. The scam was able to work because the roulette tables of the venue were vulnerable, as tokens issued have no face value.
Surveillance footage of the Monte Carlo showed the three men slipping the €10 tokens they had purchased into their pocket and then sneaking the tokens back into game play after the buy-in value was increased to €1k. On top of the money earned, the three players had also been given a suite as a comp, at the SBM hotel as they gambled.
The scam took place from April 2014 to June 2015 when the three were arrested. Rashid was described as the ringleader of the scam and had already served 14 months in prison for similar actions in the UK. Despite the massive amount of cash the group got away with, they were only order to repay €850k, a significantly smaller amount.